1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wireless mobile terminal, and more particularly to a method of inputting characters on a wireless mobile terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
Due to the development of mobile telecommunications, wireless mobile terminals have been developed and widely supplied, enabling users to communicate over the phone during their travels. Through such wireless mobile terminals, it is possible to transmit and receive data, such as characters, as well as voice. The wireless mobile terminals comprise a key input section for inputting data, such as characters, in order to transmit and receive data.
It is a current trend that wireless mobile terminals are becoming smaller and lighter to improve their portability. As the size of terminals becomes smaller, the area occupied by the key input section has been reduced. As a result, most current terminals comprise only basic function keys and number keys. However, the number of required keys on terminals is increasing, because the terminals are required to perform various functions. Therefore, terminals have been developed so that a single key can perform different operations according to the time and number of key-pressings. It is easy to set up a key for performing one operation (for example, pressing the “1” key for a longer duration in order to select a function mode). However, in a case where a plurality of characters must be inputted, the number of keys on the key input section is not sufficient to set up each key to input a particular character according to the key-pressing time and number. To solve this problem, conventional terminals assign a plurality of characters to a single key so that the plurality of characters can be inputted according to the number of key-pressings. For example, a plurality of alphabetic characters are imprinted on each key pad of a terminal. The user can input an alphabetic character by pressing the corresponding key pad from one to three times, according to the order in which the character is imprinted on the key pad. However, it is cumbersome and time-consuming to repeatedly press a key pad. Also, it will shorten the life of the key pad.